


Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [88]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angelo's, Epic Bromance, F/M, Gen, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angelo did what he could for John Watson when Sherlock died. And when Sherlock came back to life, nobody could have been happier for them than Angelo! </p><p>But then he hears John talking to Sherlock about some woman called Mary, and Angelo thinks that's no way for the doctor to talk to his amore. He has a quiet word with the doctor about breaking Sherlock's heart.</p><p>It's high time someone sorted out Angelo's little misunderstanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [azriona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azriona/gifts).



> The title is from the Billy Joel song.
> 
> After John took Mary to dinner at Angelo's in We Think It's Love Love Love (and Sherlock took Nirupa in Fighting for a Reason that We Can't Ignore) Azriona wondered how Angelo was reacting, given that he thought John and Sherlock were a couple. This is the story of how that misunderstanding was cleared up.

Angelo read the papers. He snorted like an outraged bull, even though the news was good.

_Sherlock Holmes alive!_

_Sherlock Holmes - fake dead, real hero!_

Any idiot could have told the press that Sherlock Holmes was the real thing, and a truly great man, at the time of that appalling injustice. And poor Doctor Watson! Angelo had flung tabloid journalists out of his restaurant three times in the year after that awful tragedy had come to pass – phrases like _testa di cazzo_ and _porca miseria_ and _vaffanculo_ echoing after their rat arses as he kicked them out.

But now - at last! - Sherlock was vindicated, and alive, the clever man, and Angelo knew that John Watson would be happy again at last.

Not that he'd seen the good doctor much. Angelo had sent food to him at Baker Street sometimes, warm containers of lasagna and pasta sauce with fettuccini, and chilled dishes of cheesecake and tiramisu. The doctor had scrawled brief notes of thanks, folded into the clean dishes returned to him by the landlady, but he’d not come by the restaurant.

Well, of course he _wouldn't_. Angelo's had been _their_ place, and now there was only one alive, of _course_ it was too hard to come back. Angelo, with his face of a thug, had the heart of a sentimental poet and he understood these things. He sent food and with it his unspoken assurance that he, too, believed in Sherlock Holmes, and made no demands.

Angelo stopped by Baker Street after the news was out, of course.  He didn't expect to see them. Those two men needed some time to heal the hurts of their separation. But he brought them good home cooking, made with love – veal poached in wine, and mushrooms baked with herbs, and cannelloni stuffed with mince, and the spicy sauces the doctor always loved, and baked ricotta cheesecake for Sherlock, and a good wine or two – and left these tokens of his regard with their Mrs Hudson.

She assured him they were doing better, but Sherlock needed a little quiet at the start. So did Doctor Watson. They needed time to believe it was over, her boys. They smiled at each other, Angelo and Mrs Hudson, understanding different things, but the same thing, too.

The night Sherlock and his doctor came through his door once more, heads close, talking and laughing like the old days, Angelo beamed and beamed. He personally went out the front to drive off the two paparazzi who'd dared to loiter (he'd 'dropped' one camera, how very clumsy, _oops_ , so sorry, now _fuck off_ ) and sent all Sherlock and John’s favourites to their table, more food than they could possibly eat, but he was so pleased to see them again. Together, as they should be.

Sherlock was pale and thin, even for Sherlock, but energetic as ever. Doctor Watson looked like a man making a fine recovery from a long illness. Tired but happy. Too thin, but eating with an appetite that warmed Angelo to see, along with that grin he kept flashing at his companion. They kept laughing together. It did a soul good to see them.

"Bells soon, eh?" He hazarded as he cleared their plates. Sherlock and his John never held hands in public, not even here, but love was love, eh?

The Doctor looked a mite surprised and shook his head a touch, as though Angelo had said a funny thing. Sherlock gave Angelo a sharp look, but nobody could fool Angelo. He knew love when he saw it all right.

"John and I are not getting married," Sherlock said firmly.

"Well, no need," Angelo agreed, "but I can cater, if you need..."

John gave Sherlock a look and laughed. "We're not getting married, thanks all the same."

"But you'll look so handsome in white.”

“Why would I be the one in white?” John’s eyebrow was raised, but he seemed to find the notion amusing.

“Or Sherlock,” Angelo agreed evenly, for it was all the same to him, “But white on his skin tone is perhaps not so good.”

“He works it with a white bedsheet just fine,” laughed John, then paused while Angelo gave him an indulgent smirk, and then Sherlock lifted his chin as through preening, and John threw a bread roll at him. It was all perfectly wonderful – for that and many more visits.

But on one visit, it was not perfect or in the slightest bit wonderful. Angelo, in fact, was furious.

Sherlock and his doctor took their usual seat, and Angelo gave them their usual flower and candle, their usual special treatment, but every time he went near the table, John Watson was talking of some woman, some _Mary,_ beautiful, _apparently_ , and funny and smart and sexy, and Sherlock Holmes was _letting_ him. The Doctor sometimes spoke of a friend of this _Mary_ , some clever woman that he thought Sherlock liked, if he would only admit it, and if the two of them would only please stop this nonsense with the interrupting of the dates, all would be well.

All would _not_ be well. Angelo had not a single idea what had gone wrong between them. He could see the love still there, but when one man loves another man in the way he believed those two loved each other, then one of those men does not talk to the other about a funny and smart and sexy woman, let alone _dating_ her.

Angelo waited until John went to the men’s room and followed. Before John could go through the door, Angelo had him by the upper arm and, not having expected trouble from this source, the doctor was easily dragged out into the alley for a serious talk.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Angelo demanded.

“I was expecting to have a piss, wash my hands and go back to dinner,” John said, a little crossly, and Angelo was aware of the stillness that overtook that man’s compact frame. _Dangerous_ , said the stillness, but Angelo, he could be a bit dangerous himself.

“You talk to him about your _woman_ ,” Angelo snarled, “You flaunt that in his face. You were so steadfast while he was gone, and now look at you. Breaking his heart.”

The doctor looked very, very surprised. He blinked. He frowned. He said, “Angelo, Sherlock and I are not a couple.”

“You broke up?” Angelo all but wailed, “No!”

“No, Angelo. No. Sherlock and I never were a couple. We have never been a _couple_. He’s not my boyfriend. We don’t sl… we don’t have sex.”

It was Angelo’s turn to blink, in rage at first, and then confusion, in the face of such sincerity. “But…” He blinked some more. “I always bring you candles. It’s romantic. You never said a word.”

“I’m sorry,” said John, and he did seem embarrassed, “I did try to say, back in the early days, but no-one ever believes me and… well, after a while it didn’t seem important. And now he’s back and really, it’s even less important. I don’t mind that people think we’re a couple. But we’re not a couple. I’m seeing this amazing woman, and Sherlock’s a bit…”

“He loves you,” said Angelo simply, and a little despairingly, as though the world had gone mad.

John smiled. A soft, warm smile, and that was confusing too. “Yeah. And I feel the same about him. But it’s not that kind of love.”

Angelo considered this response. “More… _fratelli per sempre_? Brothers? Like… like…” His face scrunched up in thought. “Turk and JD?”

“Ah…?”

“You don’t watch that show? Like, aaah, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, then? Han Solo and Chewbacca. Captain Kirk and Mister Spock. Like that?”

“Like that,” agreed John, a little dubiously, but he obviously felt that Angelo had understood the crux of it.

“And you never said,” Angelo frowned, annoyed, “You let me think…”

“The distinction wasn’t really important,” John said again, still apologetically, “People do it all the time, about us. We don’t mind. I don’t mind.”

“You have a… what do they say? Not a romance. A _bromance_.”

John grinned cheerfully at the appellation. “Yeah. A bromance.”

“Hmm.”

“Okay if I go to the loo, now?”

Angelo waved him on his way.

When John returned to their table, Angelo was deep in conversation with Sherlock. Sherlock was looking irritated.

“Nobody was trying to dupe you, Angelo. You thought we were a couple, we simply did not correct your assumption. I imagine you believe we frequently behave like a couple. It really wasn’t worth expending the energy to set you straight, since you never listened to John the first three times he tried, and frankly, I don’t see why I should care how you interpret our friendship.”

“But you have _hearts_ for each other,” Angelo insisted

“Hearts but not hard-ons,” Sherlock said tersely, “I have absolutely no desire to have sex with John. What an appalling idea.”

John sat back in his seat and took up his glass of wine. “Appalling?”

“You know what I mean,” protested Sherlock with a scowl.

“Mary thinks I’m well fit.” He sipped the wine, a little smugly.

“Well, obviously. She’s not _stupid_.”

“Did you just call me well fit? And did you just compliment my girlfriend on her good taste?”

Sherlock glared balefully at John. John laughed. Sherlock threw a bread roll at him.

And Angelo saw what he’d always seen. Two men who were connected soul to soul, filled to the brim with _amore,_ or perhaps, now he had been told and could see it more clearly, _amore fraterno._ Turk and J.D. Frodo and Samwise. They had hearts for each other, certainly, but not in the way he’d assumed.

But still, this was as good as _amore_ , because Doctor Watson was a man who looked like he’d had his heart and soul returned to him, and Sherlock Holmes, well, there was a man who looked like he’d had his heart and soul restored to _him_ , and so whether or not they were sexing each other up, that was love, wasn’t it?

Angelo was a hopeless romantic, and it was no great step for him to become a hugely sentimental _bro_ mantic. He clapped John on the shoulder, and then Sherlock, thumping them in jovial cheer.

“Bring your Mary here,” he told John, “I will serve her carbonara to _die_ for.  And her clever friend that Sherlock likes. Bring them both.” He winked broadly.

“Nirupa is a lesbian,” Sherlock stated flatly.

“She still eats, eh?”

Sherlock conceded that, yes, Mary’s friend still ate, being a lesbian notwithstanding.

“Then bring your friends to dinner,” Angelo insisted.

So, at different times, John brought the smart and sexy Mary to dinner, which didn’t go so well the first time, what with Sherlock interrupting and then the argument in the alley, but after that they seemed to find their way, and John brought Mary many times more after that.

Sherlock brought the clever friend, Nirupa, to dinner, too, and Angelo tried to bring them candles and flowers, only to have Sherlock roll his eyes at him and for Nirupa to flirt with the waitresses.

But then all four of them came together to the restaurant, not once but many times, and all four of them, they had hearts for each other, though only two of them kissed (in the booth, out the back near the bathrooms, by the counter, in the alley – the good doctor and his Mary were not unlike teenagers, but Angelo was so delighted at the doctor’s delight he would only smile indulgently at them and send extra wine, which Nirupa and Sherlock would drink).

Later they brought their Mrs Hudson and other friends, and then children, and all of them brought heart upon heart upon heart for each other, and they filled up Angelo’s restaurant with laughter and warmth and, sometimes, bread roll wars.

And Angelo would smile upon them all, this huge family, like they had all been his idea. And he would sing to himself:

_Volare, oh oh_  
E cantare, oh oh oh oh  
No wonder my happy heart sings  
Your love has given me wings  
Nel blu, dipinto di blu  
Felice di stare lassu  
 __  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Angelo sings the last part of the Dean Martin song, Volare.
> 
> I hope I got the Italian words and phrases right. I googled them. Surely they're right if google says so.


End file.
